Does "manbug" mean, "man" plus "bug"?
Man plus bug is more complicated than just "manbug."

If I read this book out loud, I can't help laughing. Is ManBug supposed to be funny?
That is a complicated question. Is life supposed to be funny? Depending how you look at it, almost anything can be funny.

ManBug is a novel, so I was wondering . . . is any of it true?
All the facts are true, and the rest is made up. In other words, Yes Virginia, there are lard worms, and they live in your face.

It takes little talent to see clearly
what lies under one's nose, a good
deal of it to know in which direction
to point that organ.

–W.H. Auden, from "Writing" inThe Dyer's Hand, and Other Essays

just start somewhere

Sebastian was born in a root cellar on a warm October evening. It was cool in there. It was always cool in there. The dirt floor felt alive under his sprawling fingertips, as he waited to become.

***

Metamorphosis was a constant theme for Sebastian, just as impermanence was for Tom. That is another difference they had in common.

***

There is a whole host of differences between Tom and Sebastian, if a person wanted to list them.

Tom, for example, was born into a weird hippie commune, and Tom is not even his real name, which is long and Sanskrit and is not to be used. Tom is the name he adopted when he left the weird hippie commune to become as one with the world of men.

Metamorphosis.

Impermanence.

Over and over again.

***

Sebastian’s first friends were the many-legged.

Tom spent his early years sleeping on the children’s platform with an ever-changing assortment of waifs with big, unruly hair. The children were expected to get along, and to some extent, take care of each other.

And they did.

Sebastian would watch a mosquito swell dark red on his own blood, and try not to disturb its meal.

***

It was cool in the root cellar, and smelled of clean dirt, and sometimes Sebastian imagines he is still there in his perfect little hideaway, with the many-legged, and the packed earth alive under his fingertips.